#Everyman Cinema

[lisabrueckner]

5/3/20 - Stratford upon Avon

[exylm]

Last weekend I went to an Everyman cinema for the first time ever. These pictures aren't mine, I was too stunned to take any, but this is the Everyman in Manchester. It's gorgeous. It looks just like these promo pictures in real life. There's a bar before you go in, then they have someone as you're watching the ads take food and drink orders, full table service. It hurt paying £15 for tickets when the bog standard cinema near me is £5 a ticket, but it was worth it for the aesthetic. We saw The Menu, which I'll post about soon!

[themacpsych]

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

Saving Private Ryan (15): 25 Years But Still as Visceral as Ever.

#OneMannsMovies #FilmReview of Saving Private Ryan. #SavingPrivateRyan. On the big screens again after 25 years. 5/5

A One Mann’s Movies Film Review of “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” was released in the UK on September 11th 1998. So, just to make me feel horribly old, it is now over 25 years old. But it still packs a punch on the big screen. When I first saw it, on opening night in a packed cinema, the atmosphere was electric. Especially so for that harrowing opening 15…

[gosmigenergy]

Crying because I just managed to nab tickets to my local screening of Strange Way of Life 🥲

[legallybrunettedotcom]

Heyy may I ask which documentaries on various club scenes you've been watching? Really interested in the topic :)

Hey, for sure! I'll link them all. Some of these are about clubbing, and some are more about electronic music, but understanding electronic music is essential for understanding clubbing. So I'm like really obsessed with the Hacienda, which was this big Manchester nightclub in the 80s during the Madchester era, acid house boom. You got this BBC documentary (The Hacienda - The Club that Shook Britain) and also a 1990 doc on Madchester that's a nice little introduction. One of my favourite youtube channels is Trash Theory, they did a great video on Madchester and also New Order's Blue Monday, which is relevant bc New Order basically financed the club so maybe that'll interest you as well. There's also Peter Hook's book about it that I actually still haven't read but it's next up on my to read list. I would also recommend the movie 24 Hour Party People from 2002 that I really love. I'm linking everything I've seen, some acid house, raving, disco, house, techno etc. docs, video essays, other videos and so on. I think a good start, and then from here you'll find more stuff :)

Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History Of Britain 1984-1992 by Jeremy Deller

The Chemical Generation

Acid House 1988

The Summer Of Rave 1989

Trailblazers: Acid House

Dance Britannia - Acid House

BBC Everyman - E is for Ecstasy - Rave Documentary 1992

The Rave Years - With Keith Flint & Richard Russell

I Was There When House Took Over the World

How House Music Was Born

Pump up the volume: A history of House music

Maestro Documentary - The History of the Paradise Garage

What is House? An Insider's Look at Dance Music - 1991

The Story of When House Music Went Global

When Disco Ruled the World BBC

When Disco Ruled the World VH1

Modulations - Cinema for the Ear

Better Days: The Story of UK Rave

Synth Britannia

We call it techno! A documentary about Germany’s early Techno scene and culture

Sound of Berlin Documentary

Sub Berlin - The Story of Tresor

And then there's also a bunch of real footage you can find on youtube by just typing 80s clubbing or sth like that and it's just so fun.

[sky--burial]

AVATAR at Everyman King’s Cross cinema, London | 25.01.2024 (photos by Georgia Brittain/MetalTalk)

[whinlatter]

beasts | from the postbag 🦉

it is a source of great delight, great gratitude and great guilt that i have an inbox full of juicy questions i haven't answered. reckon it's about time i got around to answering some of them! this is a bumper post with lots to answer and plenty to rummage around in, so if you have sent me a question i hope you will find it answered in here! (if i haven't replied, please know that i have treasured/been tickled by every one and will never not be pleased as punch that people reach out to say hi and chat about stuff i put out into the world). alright. to business!

it’s a fair question anon, and the answer is at least partly as you suggest: neville and seamus are loyal to ginny (dean, ofc, wasn’t there). in c.12 harry talks about having spoken with neville about it, and though he tells ginny about it, he also reassures her neville didn’t spill her secrets - harry doesn’t like people talking about him behind his back, and he’s right to assume ginny wouldn’t either. (i mean, i also think waiting for someone to be ready to talk about something is a basic mark of respect for a loved one - and learning to be patient and not demanding information from people is a skill a certain mr potter could do with learning). but, as i hope c.14 gestured towards and as the flashback chapters will unpack, ginny also had a very specific war that was particular to her and who she was vis-à-vis harry and the order. neville and (to a lesser extent) seamus know some of it, but they don’t know the whole picture. hope this helps!

i live to gag! (thank u anon!) 

i played with writing ginny having different emotional reactions in the final scene of c.14, but in the end decided i liked having her quiet, resigned to it, like she knew this was coming (they’ll all know soon, as she tells herself throughout this chapter). for someone who is often kicking off and raging at people bearing bad news, it’s a lot of fun to write ginny as someone with the wind knocked out from her every now and then. 

i won’t spoil this one, anon, but i will say that i think ginny understands harry, his good intentions, and the reasons for his blindspots. they’ve got chats to have for sure. but will she be throwing hands imminently? i would not bet on it. 

it was little women! the same book hermione's reading in chapter 3. the granger girlies love a classic. they prefer the winona ryder adaptation but hermione takes the family to see the greta gerwig version and bawls and ron has to mop her up in the richmond everyman cinema.

to these lovely anons and the others i am keeping close to my chest - i am reaching into the screen and tenderly stroking your rosy little cheek. thank you for waiting for next bits of my fic !!!

on harry's characterisation - harry is a cranky crabby little grouch with a temper and a good sulk in him. he also is not beating the softie/sentimental allegations and will always be a sweetpea when it comes to those with good vibes and freckles in spades. and we should not forget it!

anon, i don’t know what you’re like as a host, but if two horny teenage houseguests decided to use my hut for a spot of snogging and heavy petting i’d be putting my foot down and setting the skrewts on them.

more seriously - there are lots of reasons, and most are boring. some are just ‘plot’. these are two characters who are not just physically removed from one another, but having to clock their emotional distance from each other, or at least the distance in their experiences of war and how that has changed them. having them physically distant and trying to find their way back to each other through new ways of communicating is a part of this story. it would be a much much more boring story if harry and ginny could see each other every week. i love a hinny hangout as much as the next person. but the story wouldn’t work if they had endless access to each other. and this is where the other reasons come into play - story conventions, or the rules put in place by canon, where characters beyond hogwarts very rarely set foot on hogwarts’ grounds without serious reason, and the school behaves pretty much like every other english boarding school, which is strictly controlling visitor time and not just letting people rock up and hang out with the students whenever they feel like it. 

you best believe michael A&R corner will be handing out the ravenclaw lads’ mixtapes outside the courtroom, anon!

this is definitely an agree-to-disagree on this one, anon. i think, if there were no post-war justice, no trials, no public reckoning, no need to immediate need to clear snape’s name, then maybe. but i think harry would get one whiff of death eaters trying to blame their crimes on old sev and say, not on my watch. he’s literally the only person who can clear snape’s name posthumously. do i think he felt weird about it all? absolutely. but i think he would do as he does in ootp re clearing his own name and make it his business to get the truth out. i don't know if you've noticed but that young man is really rather righteous. he also couldn't wait to tell voldemort snape was actually a goodie. he was chomping at the bit, he was salivating. he had the goss and he could not wait to spread it. he's just like me fr!

thank you sm anon! i have talked a little bit about my view of hermione and ginny's relationship here (forgive the link to an old thing, i am terrible for repeating myself), but i think their relationship as you see it in beasts is my way of trying to write the middle ground between the two views of their friendship often doing the rounds in fandom - eg. they're absolute soulmate besties who totally get each other all the time vs they're basically not friends at all. i am just a bit of a sucker for hard won female friendships earned by girls growing up and getting a grip. now - if harry and ginny had an argument, i imagine ginny would be right, and hermione is always on the sign of reason. but even if ginny wasn't right, i reckon hermione would have a quiet word with her about it, but still make sure she told harry off to, just because it's good to never let the men in your life know peace.

i yelped! you dreamed of my fic! that's bonkers and brilliant in equal measure. look if chapter 15 gets revealed to you in a dream and it's better than in the google doc i'll be soooo fuckin pissed.

[kellyvela]

Sophie's Hon Vol. II Valentine's Day Edition ❤️

On January 29th 2024, the day I posted Sophie's Hon Vol. I [here], Sophie basically officialized her relationship with Perry by posting a carousel of their ski trip to Meribel, France, on instagram.

And by now, they are not only instagram official, but also event official!!!

Let's talk about what these lovebirds have been up to since the last days of January.

❤️ Sophie's Hon Vol. II Valentine's Day Edition ❤️

The little gif above is the logo of Perry's dad film company Cupid Productions, that produced films like Sympathy for the devil (1968) and Vanishing Point (1971), that I thought it was apt to embellish this post.

But before talking about their first public event together, let's talk about two occasions when Perry didn't appear in the pictures, but he was probably there in some form.

~~~

MOVIE DATE

According to Backgrid, on January 26th 2024, Sophie was seen arriving for a movie date at Everyman Cinema in Hampstead, North London:

We don't know if she was joined by her friends or Perry on that movie date, but what caught my attetion was that long, gold necklace around her delicate neck.

I know I can be wrong, but I think I have seen that necklace before, but around another neck.

Look, the necklace looks too long for Sophie, and that just increeses my suspictions that that piece of jewerly is Perry's Cowdray necklace, the one with his family estate sigil logo:

If I'm right, It seems that they are sharing jewerly since it's difficult to share clothes with a man that tall lol

~~~

CHRISTIAN WOOD BIRTHDAY

On January 27th 2024, Sophie attendend the celebration of her friend and Hair Stylist Chistian Wood's 40th Birthday:

In one of the pictures shared by Chistian Wood, you can see the hands of a man sat next to Sophie, wearing a green jacket:

I can be wrong, but I think that's Perry wearing the same green jacket he wore on January 17th 2024 during their evening stroll in London.

I can't believe that I am able to recognize Perry's limbs and other human parts on pictures now 🙈

And look at Perry liking Sophie's pictures from that night:

Anyways, now let's talk about sharing music with your Hon . . . .

~~~

THE PLAYLIST THAT WAS PROMISED

Everyone speculated about those songs Sophie were posting on IG back in December (most of them break up songs), but she was just sharing music with her Hon.

I can't take credit for this, it was shared with me by a friend that casually found Perry on certain Swedish digital music streaming service . . . . You know which one!

So, there you can find that Perry's latest playlist has a collaborator, that is not other than Sophie.

This playlist was created on October 31st 2023, so they were definitely together by then, and they both were adding songs since then until mid January 2024.

In that playlist you will find songs like Orange Blossoms by Goldford, shared twice, first added by Sophie on December 10th 2023, and added a second time by Perry on December 19th 2023. I love this song, and for me this is their song. I even posted about it here.

Orange Blossoms also appears in another Sophie's individual playlist.

The song All I Ever Asked by Rachael Chinouriri was added by Perry on January 6th 2024. This song also appears in another Sophie's individual playlist.

These two songs were shared by Sophie on instagram on December 12th 2023: Orange Blossoms by Goldford, and December 13th 2023: All I Ever Asked by Rachael Chinouriri:

The other two songs shared by Sophie on instagram on December 21st 2023: Fade Away by Susanne Sundfør and December 22th 2023: Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac, can be found in some other Perry's and/or Sophie's individual playlists:

Other songs from Sophie and Perry shared playlist that stand out, at least for me, are:

Candy by Paolo Nutini

You Give Me Something by James Morrison

Fade Into You by Mazzy Star

Real Love Baby by Father John Misty

Japanese Denim by Daniel Caesar

Get You by Daniel Caesar feat. Kali Uchis

This post was made while listening Sophie and Perry shared playlist, of course.

And now let's go to the main course . . . .

~~~

LUNAR NEW YEAR 2024 - YEAR OF DRAGON 🐉

So, on February 10th, 2024, Sophie and Perry made their public event debut by attending Stanley Zhu's Year of Dragon celebration aboard London's luxury steamer The Dixie Queen.

Just look at them posing as a couple for Getty Images photographer here:

They looked so good that night 🤩 Perry listened to me and got a better tailored suit 🤭 And Sophie, what can I say? She was a gorgeous and sexy mermaid 🧜‍♀️ 😍

Also, blonde Sophie wearing a necklace with 3 little dragons It's very funny to me 🐉 🐉 🐉

Some of their friends were at the party as well, like Sophie's childhood friend Tabitha Doherty; Rupert Gorst and Amadea Kimmins, the couple that joined them to their ski trip; Sascha von Bismarck and Ella Richards, another couple.  

Here you can see Sophie talking to some other party guests:

Here you can see Sophie watching the fireworks and dancing with her friend Tabitha Doherty:

Here you can see Sophie chatting with Sascha von Bismarck, Perry's childhood friend and roommate:

And here you can see Sophie posing with Ella Richards and Eleanor Wellesley, 📸 by Daisy Knatchbull, you can see her in the mirror reflection:

Sascha von Bismarck and Ella Richards are long time friends of Olympia of Greece (Perry's ex girlfriend). Ella is one of her closest friends, and Olympia also keeps following Sophie on instagram. So clearly the "cheating" allegations are a made up narrative.

Anyways, Sophie was enjoying the night and feeling the music and dancing this way . . .

. . . . and I have to say this, Perry, you lucky bastard!

They look so comfortable with each other and so happy together that I can only wish for them to have the loveliest first Valentine's Day as a couple.

Now, enjoy a little video compilation of Sophie and Perry hitting the dance floor:

It seems they both love to dance and I'm so happy for them.

UPDATE

Thanks to Stanley Zhu for releasing new pictures and videos:

~~~

Months later, Tatler Magazine reported about the couple's public event debut in its May 2024 issue:

HAPPY ZHU YEAR Stanley Zhu splashed out for Chinese New Year with a party aboard the Dixie Queen celebrating the Year of the Dragon. Giacomo Massimo and Eddy Downpatrick embarked in the nick of time before the boat made its glittering way along the Thames from London Bridge. Zhu, in black tie and dragon-embroidered slippers, welcomed 280 glamorous guests for a night of Studio 54 meets Shanghai. Setting pop culture abuzz by making their public debut on the social scene as a couple, Perry Pearson and Sophie Turner were first on board to dine on dim sum and sip champagne, before the red velvet curtain dropped to reveal the dancefloor. But the real showstopper was a dazzling firework display in the middle of the river, followed by ‘Tower Bridge opening up a few times for me', Zhu said, twinkle in his eye. —Tatler UK

~~~

I waited to post this until late in the hopes that Sophie would post something Valentine's Day related, but nothing so far. Maybe tomorrow? 🤞

I'm going to update this post as new content appears.

💕 So, Happy first (of many, I hope) Valentine's Day to Sophie and Perry! 💕

💕 And Happy Valentine's Day to you all as well 💕

[astroboots]

NOOO please bcs that leather jacket is giving me heart palpitations. Imagine you join Marc to the movies after work and of course he's there early just chilling. You see him with THAT and you're like "you, me, restroom, now" and he'd look so confused at first but then he'd caught on and practically run after you. Also he likes that jacket, he doesn't let you borrow it and he gets so frustrated with you when he fronts and realizes you took it for the day. He'd text "babygirl it's cold outside" and you'd reply "I know thank god I stole your jacket"

DATE AT THE CINEMA

ooooooof. Holy shit nonny! THIS WAS JUST HNNNNNNG. You got a woman fucking unhinged with that thought is what you did.

Summary: You're late for cinema with Marc. Mini Drabble

Content: nothing too explicit, just horny admiration.

ASTROBOOT’S MASTERLIST | MOON KNIGHT MASTERLIST

You're late. You're so fucking late.

It's hardly your fault. It's Friday. There's a tube strike. And Susan brought pistachio cookies from her trip to Florence into office and you couldn't bloody well just eat and dash without a polite twenty-minute conversation afterwards. That'd be rude.

But that does mean you're now, very very late. About half an hour late for a man who is chronically on time.

Your phone pings in your coat pocket, as you're dashing up the escalator from the tube exit.

Marc

You're late.

Speaking of the grumpy devil...

You

I know I know! I am literally down the street. I can see the cinema from here.

You tuck your phone back into your pocket, as you make a dash against the yellow light, looking right and left as you evade people as best as you can.

God, if the movie's started before you get there, you're never going to hear the end of it from Marc. Luckily commercials drag on, but even with them being half-hour-long nowadays you're pushing your luck right now.

You can just imagine him now, scowling, and probably scaring the living hell out of some poor bloke standing next to him.

You cut through a crowd of tourist just standing there, obliviously blocking traffic, as you loudly mutter "excuse me" and push your way through.

Then finally, finally, you reach the entry door of Everyman Cinema and push your way through to the warm air inside.

There's a long queue forming by the tills. The smell of buttered popcorn makes your mouth water, and you try to ignore it all in favour of scanning for Marc.

You almost miss him in the crowd. Can't catch the sight of his regular tan jacket that he so often wears to blend into the crowd. Then you do spot him and your knees nearly give in at the sight of him.

He's wrapped up in a thick leather pilot jacket, broad-shouldered and the softest white shearling fur for a collar that makes you want to nuzzle into that gorgeously thick neck.

Marc is just standing there looking like some far superior and more handsome, dark-haired version of Steve Mcqueen. Raven curls smoothed back against his forehead. Dark brown eyes, like they're carved from the most exquisite aged mahogany as they drill down on you, staring you down. Practically fuming. And bloody hell -- that shouldn't be as attractive of a look as he makes it.

He walks over to you, both hands shoved into his pockets in what is almost a sulky stance. And fuck, that looks good on him too. Because all you can think of is all the ways you are going to earn your forgiveness back from him.

How you're going to wipe that scowl right off his face, until his mouth parts with a broken moan.

How you're going to make his eyes flutter all pretty the way he does, throat bared to you, seconds before he comes.

How you're going to make him keep that fucking jacket on all the while as you do it.

"You're late," Marc says.

You bite your lip to stop yourself from practically salivating all over your chin as you stare at your boyfriend.

"I'm sorry," you say and smile at him. "Let me make it up to you."

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow @astroboots-writes and turn on notifs 🤡💖🤡

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott lifted the lid on what directors sometimes ask of actors while they are in the middle of filming a sex scene at an event in London on Friday.

Speaking at a cinema screening of his Netflix series Ripley, the actor, 47, gave a glimpse into the off-camera directions given as raunchy scenes are shot.

Andrew spoke about being asked to 'pick up the pace' while in the middle of the act and shared his feelings on how 'embarrassing' he finds filming sex scenes.

'"Pick up the pace, pick up the pace," literally that is the kind of notes you get,' he told radio presenter Edith Bowman at an Everyman Soundtracking event.

The Fleabag star also spoke of how sometimes actors need to re-record the audio for scenes months after the fact if a noise has interrupted the original sound - and the added awkwardness when those scenes are racy.

He said: 'Then you go in and the first thing you see is a screen grab and you're like "Urgh" then they make you re-record something that it's, you know, if we were to re-record what we just said, the idiosyncratic way that people speak. How do I do that?

'The worst thing that you have you ever have to do is if you've done a sex scene, because it's, you know, embarrassing enough.'

Andrew then said it can be especially awkward to replicate the necessary sounds for a sex scene 'in your clothes in November, seven months later with 12 people in a booth and someone is like "Any snacks?"'.

The Sherlock actor's most recent sex scenes came in the award-winning All Of Us Strangers, where he played opposite Normal People star Paul Mescal.

In January, Andrew admitted that he barely rehearsed his raunchy sex scenes with Paul while working with an intimacy coordinator for the role.

The actor was widely praised for his portrayal of a lonely screenwriter who encounters the spirits of his dead parents in director Andrew Haigh's latest film, an adaptation of Japanese author Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel, Strangers.

But while an explicit sexual encounter with Harry, played by Irish heartthrob Paul, 28, dominated the commentary surrounding its release, Scott insisted at the time that they both adopted an organic approach towards its development.

Speaking to Attitude, Andrew also credited the film's intimacy coordinator for mediating any concerns regarding the graphic nature of their sex scene.

'Sex is just communication, isn't it?' he said. 'It's just physical communication rather than verbal communication… We didn't over rehearse it. We knew that those scenes, particularly the early ones, had to have a sort of frisson.

'And we had an intimacy coordinator, which can be very helpful for the simple reason that if you're able to talk to somebody about your fears or what you want to show, what you don't want to show, or what you think it should be and what the narrative of the storyline is, you have that base of safety.

'But chemistry is a really interesting thing. You’re basically just listening to see what the other person is doing physically in the same way you would in a dialogue scene.

'And you can talk about that as much as you like, but until you're actually there, it's not alive in that way, so it's just about listening, but just listening with your body, basically.'

Andrew added that he feels that being a gay man in the modern age is a 'wonderful gift' that has helped him establish firm friendships.

He said: 'I think it's such a wonderful thing to me. It's an extraordinary gift to my life and just to be able to see the real beauty in being gay is completely wonderful.

'The older I get, just the more I feel so lucky to have been born gay and that pervades my life in the sense of all my friendships. I have so many amazing queer friends in my life now that I just adore.'

He added: 'I feel such a huge sense of camaraderie with other queer people now, and without sounding too hippy about it, I feel like I just want to spread that love and positivity in our community because we've come such a long way and it's important that we are kind and look out for each other, and celebrate how uniquely different and how f***ing wonderful that can be.''

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Five

Week 29:

Film(s): Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA)

Viewing Format: Streaming Video (Amazon)

Date Watched: 2022-02-11

Rationale for Inclusion:

Late in the runtime of last week's film, The Thing From Another World (Dir. Christian Nyby, 1951, USA), as part of a monologue trying to convince his fellow occupants of the Arctic base not to destroy the carnivorous plant alien that has already drained the blood of multiple scientists and sled dogs, Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) concludes his plea for the importance of the pursuit of knowledge at all costs with, "We split the atom." At which point, one of the airmen, Lt. Eddie Dykes (James Young), cuts in with, "Yes, and that sure made the world happy, didn't it?" The sardonic quip stops Carrington cold.

In 1951, only six years had passed since the United States had deployed atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August of 1945. Whilst news of the destruction and atrocities were initially slow to spread, by the time the film takes place the scientists and airmen in The Thing no doubt knew the horrors inflicted upon Japan. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1949, and the Cold War was very much underway.

With this cultural context in place, it follows that the post-apocalyptic film would make a comeback in the 1950s. Rocketship X-M (Dir. Kurt Neumann, 1950, USA) featured a post nuclear disaster society on Mars, but this survey has not featured a film where the central narrative is built around people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world since natural disaster film Deluge (Dir. Felix E. Feist, 1933, USA). So when I encountered Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA) described as the "first to depict the aftermath of an Earthly atomic bomb catastrophe" whilst perusing Wikipedia's science fiction cinema list, I knew it was an essential film to view.

Five was an independent film written, directed and produced by Arch Oboler, a successful radio dramatist who followed in Orson Welles' footsteps in transitioning to filmmaking. Oboler had directed three films prior to Five, and to keep costs down on the production the cast featured relatively unknown working actors, the crew was recruited from recent University of Southern California graduates, and the primary filming location was a Frank Lloyd Wright designed guest house on Oboler's Malibu ranch.

Reactions:

With its limited cast and locations, Five is dominantly the kind of no frills character study that would become more commonplace during the 1960s. It is simply and competently made with aesthetics that may remind modern day audiences of episodes of anthology television series, like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.

As implied by the title of the film, the small cast of characters includes five people: the pregnant Roseanne Rogers (Susan Douglas Rubeš), white everyman Michael Rogin (William Phipps), the aged bank clerk Oliver P. Barnstaple (Earl Lee), black everyman Charles (Charles Lampkin), and supposedly affluent adventurer Eric (James Anderson). Roseanne's sex and Charles' race become sources of drama, mostly because Eric exhibits a behavior described decades later by sociologists as "elite panic."

Lee Clarke and Caron Chess of Rutgers University coined the term in a 2008 journal article, in which based on available research and case studies of disasters from the 1950s through 2001 they determined that the source of panic in these scenarios was not the general public devolving into a mob, but by elites, fearing that their power and wealth would be violently stripped from them by a mob. Clarke and Chess specifically identify three relationships with panic that occur during disasters: elites fearing panic, elites causing panic, and elites panicking. My introduction to this concept came via an episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards recorded during November of 2020, when amid the COVID-19 pandemic and stress around the presidential election having a reminder that the majority of people are inherently giving, caring, communal creatures was a huge comfort.

In Five, after an initially violent encounter, Michael and Roseanne band together for survival, with Oliver and Charles later joining them. They compassionately deal with Roseanne's pregnancy and Oliver's mental dissociation and decline from radiation sickness amid their limited resources. Oliver's dying request to visit the nearby ocean results in the old man having as peaceful a death as available under the circumstances, and the discovery of a man washed ashore, Eric.

The injured Eric's explanation for how he survived the atomic bombing is bizarre compared to the banality of the others' explanations, who were shielded from the blast via being in an elevator, lead-lined hospital x-ray room, and bank vault, respectively. Instead Eric was actively climbing Mount Everest alone when a blizzard stranded him. When he made it back to basecamp he found other climbers dead. On foot and via abandoned conveyances Eric had made his way back to America, encountering no other survivors along the way, just dead bodies.

Eric's journey in its entirety sounds highly unlikely, but at first only one aspect utterly defied my credulity: who climbs Mount Everest alone? Mountaineering is not a pet topic of research for me, but I know enough to know that no serious climber attempts Everest without guides, frequently members of the local Sherpa community. "What happened to his sherpa?" I demanded aloud when we got to this point in the film. "Did he eat them?"

Given that Eric is gradually revealed to be a greedy opportunist, in retrospect his story may have been nothing but lies. It seems more likely he was in the United States the entire time and leapfrogged from one pocket of resources and survivors to another until he ended up washing up on the beach. Regardless of whether he actually was a billionaire or not--and the film does nothing to disprove his account--he nevertheless has an elite mentality: trying to hoard resources (including Roseanne) to himself. 

Eric is the sociopathic evolution of the wandering rapists from Deluge, and ultimately serves the narrative role of Michael's doppelganger. Michael may have initially tried to sexually assault Roseanne, but spends the rest of the film making up for that feral moment. Eric is predatory and ends up becoming a murderer in the course of the narrative; after being banished by the others, he goes back to steal supplies and kills Charles when he is caught. Michael is spared having to also become a murderer by the reveal near the end of the film that Eric has radiation poisoning and likely does not have much time left. The film makes it clear that Michael is a good man, and deserving of being the new Adam of the post-apocalyptic world.

Roseanne earns her new Eve status in part by being the token female, and in part because she is devoted to her missing husband until she finds definitive proof that he died in the bombing. Her dedication to her husband and baby are all that is needed to qualify her as a good woman. 

Unfortunately, her newborn dies for reasons of narrative convenience. Apparently it was too much to ask for Michael to be father to a baby he did not conceive. Instead it ends with Michael and Roseanne left alone. Despite the tragedies and threat of radiation sickness lingering, Five closes conservatively and reasonably optimistically: life will go on.

Before I wrap up, I would be remiss if I did not spend more time discussing Charles. His presence is itself a progressive act, given how the casts of most mainstream films surveyed thus far have been all or mostly white. However, he is introduced in a subservient role to an old white man, and spends the remainder of his time in the narrative as a litmus test to show who is the superior white man to repopulate the world: Michael or Eric. The notion that Charles might be a candidate for Roseanne's mate is never so much as suggested. For all the indignities Charles suffers throughout Five, he at least is spared the trope frequently placed on black men of being the first to die. Overall, Charles is a minor step forward for black representation in science fiction cinema.

Five, on the other hand, is a solid first representation of the post-nuclear apocalypse narrative. Later films built on the premise, like On the Beach (Dir. Stanley Kramer, 1959) and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Dir. Ranald MacDougall, 1959), would result in better movies, but Five deserves greater attention within the sub-genre.

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

The Holdovers (15): "World is decay; Life is Perception".

#onemannsmovies #film review of "The Holdovers". #theholdovers. A superb comedy/drama from Alexander Payne with award-winning turns by the leads. 4.5/5.

A One Mann’s Movies Film Review of “The Holdovers” (2024). Rather irritatingly for a ‘Christmas classic’ we have only just got “The Holdovers” released in the UK. (It seems to be on limited release this week, with more screenings promised from next Friday). But it was worth waiting for. And I can see now why Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and (to a lesser extent) Dominic Sessa have been…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ed Harris has publicly refused to speak about his experiences working on "The Abyss" (1989), saying, "I'm not talking about 'The Abyss' and I never will." One of the few things he said about it was "Asking me how I was treated on 'The Abyss' is like asking a soldier how he was treated in Vietnam." Similarly, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio said, "'The Abyss' was a lot of things. Fun to make was not one of them."

Cast members had to become certified divers before filming began. The Deepcore crew started training together in the Caribbean one month before filming, in order to create a sense of camaraderie. Harris was not among them, as he was still filming another movie, so he got his certificate while training in a lake nearby. The actors playing the SEALs received a separate, military training. At the end of the shoot, Harris was the most accomplished diver (near-professional level) despite not having trained a single day in the actual ocean.

During underwater filming, Harris almost drowned a few times. One time was while filming the scene where he had to swim without a suit at the bottom of the submerged set, and the safety diver took very long to hand him a breathing regulator. However, the closest call came during the descent into the Abyss. Harris was wearing a helmet filled with liquid, and had to hold his breath while he was towed along a set. When he ran out of air, he gave the signal for oxygen, but his safety diver got hung up on a cable and could not get to him. Another crew member gave Harris a regulator, but it was upside down and caused him to suck in water. Underwater cinematographer Al Giddings saw what happened, ripped the upside down regulator, and gave him his own in the correct orientation. Later that evening, Ed broke down and cried.

The studio was considering Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Harrison Ford, Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze for the role of Virgil 'Bud' Brigman. Cameron suggested Ed Harris, but the studio was concerned about his lack of experience as leading man, as well as his receding hairline (something that Cameron felt added to his everyman appeal). Harris convinced the studio with a screen test where he wore a motorcycle helmet as a diving helmet. (IMDb)

Happy Birthday, Ed Harris!

[Cinema Shorthand Society]

[powderblueblood]

would u ever wanna…i dunno…give us a sneaky little cheeky sneaky little peaky of…you know…the next chapter of hai or whatever 👀

i'm going to be serious and true with you anon, the google doc is a mess right now (as is my brain) but i genuinely wrote part of a scene longhand when i was in the cinema the other day.

chapter nine (chapter NINE! can you believe it) of course includes a certain someone doing her certain investigative journalism piece for a certain high school newspaper about a certain dungeons and dragons club despite... the everything that's going on between her and her subject matter.

but journalistic integrity comes first. it's what didion would want.

and we get this exchange, after she asks him why he does this stuff, this fantasy board game stuff.

"because it's fun."

"nope, too vague."

"vague?"

"basketball is fun. chess club is fun. throwing rocks into a rusted can of spaghettios is fun, if you can make a case for it. too vague. didn't come here for the everyman answer."

"what did you come here for?" loaded.

"the munson answer." this hangs in the air like somebody just dropped off the gallows. "dig for me."

resistance is futile, as it is and ever will be with you. eddie hides a smile in the heel of his palm. flattery works with him. even if you'd never call this flattery.

[agentnico]

The Bikeriders (2024) review

Norman Reedus shows up for only 5 minutes and yet still has more dialogue here than in the entire 11 season run of The Walking Dead.

Plot: Over the course of a decade, a Midwestern motorcycle club evolves from a gathering place for local outsiders to a sinister gang, threatening the original group's way of life.

My screening was not full on this one, but of the people that were there it was primarily older women. I was wondering why this was the case until an arms naked Austin Butler popped up on screening and began flexing over a pool table, and I could literally feel the audience around drooling and then some. But in reality the target audience for this film are men, and more so men who love/ride motorbikes. As The Bikeriders is a deconstruction of coolness and biker culture as a macho posturing that is really an incredibly fragile ecosystem of male relationships and values. But there are so many cool bikes in this, and a lot of scenes involve guys just sitting around a bar endlessly chain smoking and chatting crap. For one I absolutely dug the sound design. Of course it could have been the good sound system of the cinema I was in (the Everyman) but I felt every rev of the engine. The sound is so forceful, it’s like being caught in a carburettor of a Harley Davidson. This partnered with a fantastic music soundtrack as it freewheels you through the many hits of the 60s and 70s, from The Stooges to The Shangri-Las, the sound is this movie’s secret weapon.

This movie is very much a guys hang-out sesh, and yes there is a loose narrative reminiscent of Goodfellas and even Tom Hardy’s Legend, but overall this is Jeff Nichols’ generalised outlook of the motorbike culture from a individual who seems absolutely infatuated with this community. As much as I loved the feel of this film and I was never actually bored at any moment, due to the structure of it all there wasn’t a single character I cared about. They’re all macho guys trying to showcase how badass they are, but essentially that’s all they have to them. The performances across the board are all engaging, but the reason we connect with them is purely cause we’re fans of the actors themselves. Austin Butler is a modern day movie star through and through, and since Elvis he’s been effortlessly cool non stop. Tom Hardy puts on a strikingly thick Chicago accent and again, is great to watch. Michael Shannon and Norman Reedus show up with crazy hair-dos and messy almost-barbaric physicalities, and Jodie Comer is a stuck in a narration bit and her character essentially only works as a romantic foil to provide the movie with some limited emotion, which is what it lacks.

The Bikeriders is a perfectly enjoyable crime drama that is an entertaining time, but also boils down to kind of nothing. There’s not much meaning to be found here besides the classic “let’s be cool”, however as a jacket wearer myself I got a big dig at seeing the various outfits and leather jackets characters were wearing. Essentially you won’t be disappointed when seeing this on a Saturday night, but chances are you will forget quite quickly.

Overall score: 6/10